Sometimes on Lemmy these seem like the only jobs that actually exist, but I’m sure there’s a lot of people here with different and unusual lines of work.

  • Bilbo_Haggins@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    5 months ago

    Environmental engineer. I clean up chemical messes like oil spills, and make sure that the resulting land is safe enough for people to live on it.

    It’s fun and challenging, if somewhat depressing at times. Some things take a LONG time to clean up. On the plus side, I have great job security.

    • Iampossiblyatwork@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      I did this right out of college. I’m not sure if it was the LNAPL measurements or the asbestos abatements but I really needed to get out of that industry.

      • Bilbo_Haggins@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        Yeah I feel you on that, the fieldwork stage of the job can get tiring really fast, especially with the more routine stuff like asbestos and LNAPL spills. Vapor intrusion work is less of a bear, we’re doing a lot of that lately and it’s nice because it’s indoors in the winter. I work in a larger company with a variety of projects so I’m not always doing the same thing and that definitely helps. In my current company people do tend to graduate out of the field positions fairly quickly (like 5 years) and move on to a desk job or at least a partial desk job but those first few years when you’re in the field a lot can be hard and maybe impossible if you have any dependents that keep you from traveling.